Guy S |
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Today Defra published the findings of its 18-month ‘pre-feasibility study’ into personal carbon trading. The verdict: Personal Carbon Trading (PCT) is an ‘interesting idea’ but is essentially ‘ahead of its time’. The government will keep a ‘watching brief’ over other academic and community projects examining PCT, but for now, is closing the door on the concept.
The summary report, and the four hefty studies it’s based on, can be found at http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/climatechange/uk/individual/carbontr…. I haven’t had time to do more than skim the summary report yet, but it’s clear that this is not a good outcome for personal carbon allowances. It’s a far cry from summer 2006 when David Miliband, then Environment Secretary, declared his interest in carbon rationing and kicked off Defra’s research projects. This radical turn has proven to be something of a short fling: as would seem to be the case with waste charging, the government is increasingly distancing itself from unpopular green fiscal measures. With a maximum of just two years to go before a general election, this is no longer the time or place for radical ‘blue skies thinking’. The future of PCT, in that case, may lie with the Tories. If CRAGs are to conduct more lobbying work in future, it may be to sell carbon allowances and community carbon groups to Conservative MPs.
I’ll post some more once I’ve had the chance to read through the main studies. It’d be good to get a discussion going – there is clearly much of interest to go through (especially the study looking at public acceptance), and there may be plenty of silver linings to mitigate my essentially gloomy reading of it all. I’d be interested in others’ readings.
Indeed, one such (small, and admittedly self-congratulatory) silver lining is that CRAGs get two mentions in the summary report!
If nothing else, I’ll drink to that.
Guardian take & Very high costs
david
Yes, the Guardian has a rather more err… colourful take on it (Government scraps carbon card scheme for fear of ridicule). But there’s not much new in the article itself, it’s mostly quotes.
What struck me on an initial read is their very high estimates on costs (700 million to 2 billion setup; 1 to 2 billion per year running costs). Those seem astronomical to me. The assumptions on these and on the “social costs” of carbon might make some interesting reading.
I fear the real reason, like the Guardian spin, is that this government has just run out of political capital for forward-thinking projects like these, and it’s running scared of the Daily Mail et al..